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"Fish, huh," he said. His attempt to sound nonchalant failed miserably. "Like, what kind? Bigger than a breadbox? Or does size even matter?"

"Interesting..." Sid echoed. His mouth suddenly felt dry, but the only thing he'd bothered to stock the mini fridge with was assorted types of alcohol. On second thought, that would work well. "Could you elaborate?"

The hole was only getting deeper, but he couldn't keep from asking.

"Oh, sure," Sid said. His tone had taken on the kind of false-joviality usually employeed by people trying to ignore the fact they were, say, suddenly missing a limb. "Looks kind of like Satan's version of the flounder, right? Saw something on the Discovery Channel about it. Wild stuff, just wild. Why... Why that? Just out of curiosity. Which, really, is why I asked in the first place."

He couldn't rightly say it was for peace of mind. Peace of mind was currently chilling in the same fridge he was staring at. As the information sank in he began to realize what he had in the fridge probably wasn't going to cut it.

"Why not," he echoed. "That's all I wanted to know, I think.... Thanks."

It was cool, he told himself. He could cope. Of course he could. He'd done amazingly so far. He could just hold on to the thought that any changes wouldn't happen for a long, long time. Cling desperately, more like.

"Not that I can think of, no." He was grinning as he said it, though technically it was more like a grimace.

With the connection cut, Sid very slowly walked over to the mini fridge, just as he had been contemplating since he'd let that question slip. He had an assortment of liquors, each a souvenir from his visits to the beach bar, none of which was full. He lined each bottled up on top of the fridge, from the bottle of vodka that was almost full, to the bottle of whiskey that was nearly empty. He touched the top of each one in an almost ritualistic fashion.

"This doesn't solve anything," he reminded himself out loud. But it was that or scream and throw things, which in his mind was even less dignified. This way he had control. This way he didn't have to clean up, provided he made it to the bathroom when his body revolted against all it was subjected to.

He drank in silence, working methodically towards what he hoped would induce some sort of black out, like that night so long ago when he forgot about getting married. If some else was around he would have gotten talkative, maybe would have made a fool of himself, but instead he just went down the checklist of warning signs for alcoholism. Without any of the other fun substances on hand to abuse it was all he had.

Somewhere along the line he toyed with the idea of seeing what alcohol poisoning was like, or maybe even what would happen if he took all the pills he had left as a chaser... But his courage wasn't that great, and he was pretty sure he was destined for some kind of worse hell, anyway. And so, with a few of the bottles still left untouched, he staggered off to the bathroom. First he threw up, then he quietly leaned against the bathtub and passed out.

He had a terrible crick in his neck when he woke up, which went nicely with the hangover. Both were lovely reminders he was still alive. Yay.

Sid meets Billy. Sedation, cigarettes, and incredibly awkward moments abound.

Link: http://www.gaiaonline.com/guilds/viewtopic.php?page=1&t=5784713#82194877